Building’s gold winners

All the night’s winners line up for our photocall

The construction industry showed its backing en masse for the 2012 Olympic bid last week when a record number of people attended the 2005 Building Awards. The theme of this year's event, which attracted a record number of 1900 guests, was backing the 2012 Olympic Bid.

In a specially recorded message to the guests in the Great Room at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Lord Sebastian Coe, the leader of the 2012 bid team, thanked the industry for the support it had given. “Many of you will have worked on the design, or planning of our fantastic bid. Even more of you will have supported us by texting our pledge number or registering online. Thank you.”

Coe continued by saying that if the bid was won in July it would face the challenge of delivering all the new infrastructure and facilities needed for games.

“That’s where you come in. Britain’s construction industry is now widely recognised as being truly world-class.

“When the International Olympic Committee assessors came to London earlier in the year it was clear to me that they were really impressed by the UK construction industry’s professionalism and phenomenal productivity.”

The Olympic theme was also continued in the presentation of E E the awards. Bid champion and BBC sports frontman John Inverdale presented them, and five Olympic athletes were at hand to help announce the winners. These included Marlon Devonish, one of the 4 × 100 relay team that took gold in Athens.

In a mini-interview with Inverdale, Devonish said: “It was an amazing enough experience being a winner in Athens. Being in the Games on home turf would be an incredible experience.”

Comedian Rory Bremner brought another topical touch to the occasion, when he entertained the audience with his brilliant take on the general election.

Among this year’s winners were Barratt, which carried off the Major Housebuilder of the Year trophy, and architectural practice bptw, which won Architect of the Year.

It was a great night for Stanhope, which won the Best Practice Award and Client of the Year. Its director Peter Rogers also won Construction Personality of the Year. Atkins was crowned Construction Consultant of the Year, and Costain was named Major Contractor of the Year.

Another real winner of the evening was the charity Construction Industry Trust for Youth, to which more than £17,000 was donated from generous guests taking part in the “heads or tails” holiday competition – and one lucky chap landed a luxury trip to Dubai.

More photographs of the winners can be found on our website www.building.co.uk and a full list of winners also appeared in our awards supplement, which was free with last week’s magazine.